- Hello, readers!
- Disclaimer
- 1. Tavern Tale by Kristina W. Kelly
- 2. Magica Riot by Kara Buchanan
- 3. Foresyth Conservatory by A.L. Sterling
- 4. Growing Home by C.M. Howes
- 5. A Third Kind of Madness by Christiane Knight
- 6. In the Name of Honor by Courtney & Clarke Collins
- 7. Black Rose by Arlo Z. Graves
- Overall Thoughts On All Books:
Hello, readers!
WriteHive gave me the privilege of being one of the judges for the 2025 Indie Ink Awards this year! The 2025 Indie Ink Awards is a book awards competition for indie authors. I also had the amazing experience of being a judge for the 2024 Indie Ink Awards, which was also an amazing experience. Given that I read many books this year, I thought I’d share which books I read and what my thoughts were on each one!
Eligible books had to be either self published or published by a small press as of November 1, 2025 and must not be out of print. The version of the text and cover that is in print & current as of Nov 1 of the award year is the version that will be used as the award entry.
All nominees (and therefore all finalists) were in the YA to Adult age categories and consisted of any fiction genre category.
Also, AI-assisted/AI-generative works are not eligible for the awards. This includes, for example, using ProWritingAid’s AI Sparks feature, ChatGPT, etc., using Midjourney or other AI-assisting photos for cover designs, or AI-audio narration (for the Best Audio category). You can read the full rules at this link.
Disclaimer
I also will NOT be listing the categories I judged it for, as I believe that would also be a breach of confidentiality for me as a judge. However, I will list every category that each book was nominated for to begin with.
I also want to be transparent that I did not read and judge every single book for every single category. That would’ve been impossible for me to physically do, and some categories (particularly the ones focusing on specific demographic representation, such as disability and/or trans or nonbinary rep in the books) were ones I was not qualified to judge to begin with.
1. Tavern Tale by Kristina W. Kelly
All categories it was nominated for:
- This Book Made Me Hungry/Thirsty
My thoughts:
- More worth it for the plot than the characters
- Romance was a bit fast (for my liking) but not bad
- Has some good disability rep.
2. Magica Riot by Kara Buchanan
All categories it was nominated for:
- Best friendship
- Best light read
- Best use of tropes
- Writing the Future We Need: Trans or Nonbinary Representation
My thoughts:
- A great tribute to magical girl media!
- Friendships were really fun to read as they developed over the course of the book
- Would recommend it for those who want a tribute to all the magical girl media of the past (especially Sailor Moon and Madoka Magica)
3. Foresyth Conservatory by A.L. Sterling
All categories it was nominated for:
- Best use of tropes
My thoughts:
- Very slow-paced
- Heavy “Dark Academia” vibes
- Read for the worldbuilding, not for the characters or story if you want to enjoy it
- Admittedly not my cup of tea but those who love Dark Academia and tarot-based worldbuilding will enjoy it
4. Growing Home by C.M. Howes
All categories it was nominated for:
- This Book Made Me Hungry/Thirsty
My thoughts:
- A sweet story about found family and
- I cried at the end of reading this book (in a good way)!
5. A Third Kind of Madness by Christiane Knight
All categories it was nominated for:
- This Book Made Me Hungry/Thirsty
Overall Thoughts:
This book didn’t make me hungry or thirsty at all, unfortunately.
6. In the Name of Honor by Courtney & Clarke Collins
All categories it was nominated for:
- This Book Made Me Hungry/Thirsty
- Writing the Future We Need: LGBTQ+ Representation
Overall Thoughts:
- Despite the implication from the summary that this is a 2-person POV book at most, there are 4+ POVs in this book instead. Readers who aren’t a fan of multiple POVs might not enjoy reading this, especially since there are some flashbacks.
- The pros, however, mean that you get to discover flashbacks/memories of some of the side characters, particularly Ral and Kahled, so
7. Black Rose by Arlo Z. Graves
All categories it was nominated for:
- Prettiest Book Interior
Overall Thoughts:
- I thought this one was mostly fine, storytelling and pacing-wise. Nothing spectacularly outstanding but nothing that didn’t make sense to me.
- I just could not enjoy reading any of the characters; all of them were a bit underdeveloped.
- I was also confused by the ending, which I will not spoil here.
Overall Thoughts On All Books:
None of the books I read that were nominated for This Book Made Me Hungry or Thirsty didn’t make me feel hungry or thirsty at all. Food DID exist in these books, so it wasn’t like the characters weren’t eating at all. However, I was fully expecting a Restaurant To Another World by Junpei Inuzuka level of writing with its sensory details, when reading these books for this specific category.
Unfortunately, none of the books I read really hit the mark for me when reading for this category. Granted, I didn’t read and judge every book nominated for this category. It’s possible that I just happened to miss the few gems that did properly match this category.
Also, out of every book I read, the only book I fully enjoyed reading was Magica Riot by Kara Buchannan. The rest just weren’t to my personal taste as a reader.
However: Even if I didn’t enjoy reading these books personally, I do want to state here that it’s not an easy feat to be nominated to the point of making it as a finalist. I’ve had my own books nominated for the 2023 Indie Ink Awards years ago, and none of them made it to finalist status at the time.
The fact that these finalists did make it to the final means, to me, that the books resonated with their audiences enough that they were willing to show up and vote for them in this competition. Even if we judges have the final say on who wins out of the finalists, popularity will always be a factor with book awards competitions. I just happen to not be a fan of what was put up as finalists this time around, and that’s okay.
If you were a finalist in the 2025 Indie Ink Awards, you have my congratulations! I may not have enjoyed reading the books I judged, but I know that many others did, and I’m really glad that you made it this far! I wish all of them good luck as we determine the winners.
Learn more about the Indie Ink Awards at this link.
